Technology and Instant Gratification

What have cellphones, e-mail, instant messaging, SMS and social networking sites done to us? For one they have made it easier to connect and relate to others. Infact it even has helped people find old friends, keep in touch, even though you may not have met them for years. Technology has created ways where we can choose who we want in our virtual world and block the unwanted.

In a busy world technology has helped us form virtual relationships, sometimes with very little probability of meeting face to face.

Along with all this, technology has created space for individuals who want instant gratification. If Sigmund Freud, a psychoanalyst would have been alive, he would have jumped in joy to see how his theory about humans wanting instant pleasure has turned right.

Maybe Freud was born a little too early. I wonder what else he could have speculated.

By Instant Gratification, I just mean that people want quick replies to their sent text messages — the absence of which can create doubt, panic and sometimes a lot of other thoughts about how their message is being perceived. The reality is that no matter how reliable technology is, sometimes, it fails us. The messages don't reach,there are people who don't read messages and also sometimes if we keep our phones silent, we may miss a message for hours and not only that if you are in a meting or workshop,you may not see it all!

This happens to all of us, but the big question is — what can you do about it?

I love technology and I'm married to a techie :) So this isn't any anti tech message. It's just a thought. Let's explore how we can use technology to our optimum in the next article.

Sense of worth

My psychology professor, while teaching Rogers, mentioned a line that stayed with me. Over the years it has shaped my work with my clients. This post is a way of thanking my professor for saying that and touching my life in a significant way.

The strange thing is that I still remember the day when she mentioned the line and how it kept echoing for a very long time.Carl Rogers was a therapist who believed in the human potential. He believed that people have the capacity to find their own answers. My professor said —

'The fact that you are a human being makes you worthy'.

I consider this as something sacred, which has touched the lives of so many students who I taught psychology and the clients I worked with. It helps reinforce the idea of being and I have seen people's faces light up as soon as they hear it. It's been healing in a beautiful way.

Thanks for sharing that line with us and touching so many lives.

Dreams

Dreams pass in to the reality of action. From the action stems the dream again and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.

-Anais Nin

Couple of years back I read something in my dream, which continues to come back to me every now and then. They just appeared in a dream and prepared me for life to come.

Faith to Fathom
Strength to Surrender

Over the years I have felt this dream and the message slowly seeping in to my life. Teaching me faith and helping me surrender. I still wonder where did these lines come from. Dreams can be therapeutic too.